Posts Tagged ‘comics’

I compiled this for my own personal record-keeping, but thought I’d share.

I try to read at least one novel or story collection a week, and I aim to write at least a brief review for each (I rarely hit that goal, though, especially with my other reading/writing requirements). I’m probably omitting some books I’ve forgotten from this list because I started compiling it at the end of July, and I’m not including kids’ books I read with my daughter or scholarly non-fiction/philosophy/etc. only people like me read (each of which would have a separate list if I had time to put it together). This list is organized in a roughly chronological order of when read. Books marked with an asterisk were re-reads.

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The always engaging blogger known as trashfilmguru has spent way too much a lot of time thinking about what would make for a great post-Christopher Nolan incarnation of Batman on film. These musings are, at the moment, 10 posts long. I have no idea where he(?) finds the time.

While I haven’t finished the entire series, and I suspect there will be some points where I’ll disagree, I highly recommend any Batman fans out there check these posts out. They’re smart and the author is well-read on the world’s greatest detective.

The imperatives of blockbuster action films and the composition of The Avengers’ team make for odd bedfellows

Hawkeye wouldn’t stand a chance if Hulk smash

Almost a month after everyone else, I finally got around to seeing Joss Whedon’s The Avengers this past weekend. I was impressed. Though I’m certainly not an Avengers super-fan and have only read a few Avengers team comics, I felt Whedon does a great job doing justice to what I know of the source material and character continuity while still creating a compelling action film. I initially worried a bit about Loki as the villain falling flat, but Tom Hiddleston’s acting and Whedon’s writing/direction pulled it off much better than I expected. One thing that stuck out as a weakness, however, was the make up of the team that Whedon has to work with: the pairing of superhuman heroes with exceptional humans who happen to be at the top of the mere-mortal scale of physical ability. This comes through most clearly in the final, climactic battle scenes, which are mostly thrilling but had me feeling I was actually consciously suspending my disbelief.